


Knit one purl one

by Skippo



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:27:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24612256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skippo/pseuds/Skippo
Summary: AKA: The Grannies strike back. Hermione joins the Knitting Guild of the Wizarding World and discovers that there are those out there more powerful than Voldemort, Dumbledore or the Ministry. This is a short, silly story of how the ancient matriarchs of the Wizarding world take on Voldemort and win, then reform the world in their image, that is to say, far better mannered of course.Cross posted on ffn.
Kudos: 5





	Knit one purl one

Knit one, purl one. 

Or the Gradmas’ strike back.

Hermione followed McGonagall with some surprise.

“What do you mean, I’ve been given special dispensation?” She asked, totally baffled for once. McGonagall gave her an amused look.

“Have you had any contact with the Hogsmede knitting guild Ms Granger?” The older woman asked, and Hermione blinked in surprise.

“I sent them an owl asking whether they had any knitting patterns or help they could offer to help me improve my knitting.” She flushed, slightly embarrassed. “Ron was being rude about my knitting and commented that the things I was making weren’t very good and that he didn’t understand why anyone would want anything I made, so I was looking up ways to make my knitting a bit better and well, when I found out the magical world had a knitting guild…” McGonagall smiled rather knowingly at her.

“Well, they responded by sending a letter to Dumbledore demanding your presence at their weekly meetings. Considering you are far ahead in your studies and frankly, could do with learning to relax a little, he granted the requested special dispensation for you to spend a few hours a week with them. It probably helps it was his great aunt who sent the letter.” She said wryly and Hermione blinked. Dumbledore had a great aunt? How old was this woman?

She’d apparently said that thought out loud, because he favourite teacher snorted with amusement.

“You will find, Miss Granger, that the Knitters Guild is populated by the most ancient and forceful matriarchs of the wizarding world. Most of them are over two hundred, apparently wizened old crones but in fact some of the most powerful people in the wizarding world, because every powerful person in our world remembers one of them or more as terrifying authority figures from their youth, and these ladies do not play fair. Thankfully for the sanity of the world they rarely exert their power, preferring to sit around in the yarn shop in Hogsmede knitting, gossiping in the way of elderly ladies and swilling industrial quantities of strong Yorkshire tea, along with all the rich teach biscuits pure blood wealth can buy.” Hermione sniggered at the mental image that description provided, and was rather reassured that some things crossed the magical and non-magical worlds.

“They seem rather pleased that a young thing would take such an interest in improving their knitting. I suspect they also want a new source of gossip, since most of their great and great, great grandchildren are too scared of them to do anything other than pass on platitudes.” Hermione grinned again, almost wanting to drag Ron along with her for the amusement value.

By now they had reached McGonagall’s office and her still amused looking teacher shuffled her through the floo.

The room she arrived in, on first glance looked much like your stereotypical yarn shop, yet bigger. The second glance was what showed you it was a magical one. Starting with the yarns themselves, which included various colour change effects, some rather odd textile effects and a number of things Hermione couldn’t quite identify but had to be magical. The shelves also had what had to be the wool version of L-space. W-space maybe?

“Ah, you’re here dear.” Said an elderly woman who had just sort of appeared by her. The old lady (Hermione assumed the figure was in fact a lady but it was a little hard to tell) brought a whole new meaning to the word ‘wizened’. Hermione couldn’t tell what her original height was, but she now definitely didn’t even nearly reach five foot, bent over with what had to be a permanent stoop. The robes she wore were, of course, top of the range if rather conservative and were accessorised with a pair of gold rimmed spectacles on a chain. “I assume you are Miss Hermione Granger?”

Hermione nodded and then realised that there was a fair chance the old lady couldn’t see that.

“Yes, my lady.” She erred on the side of extreme caution considering McGonagall’s description, knowing how really old ladies loved manners, and these were ones she didn’t want to annoy.

“Such a polite young thing, they don’t breed many like you these days. All those young things who think they are so much more important than anyone else.” She muttered, still giving off the air of Hermione’s own sadly deceased great grandmother as she’d remembered the old biddy. “I’m Glorianna Bletchley, most senior witch of that house, although I was originally of the Macmillan clan of course. You’re part of the extended Dagworth Granger clan I take it?” Hermione blinked.

“Erm, I don’t think so, at least I’m not aware so.” She said, blinking in surprise. The old biddy narrowed her eyes at her.

“Nonsense. You have the look of Amiatina Dagworth Granger to you. Same eyes and face. Poor girl. Got attacked by some dark wizard when she was pregnant and her husband killed, then she disappeared off with the child. That was back in the 40’s, the 1940’s that is of course. You’re probably her granddaughter. We should get it checked at some point. Can’t have a pure blood girl thought not to be.” Hermione wisely shut up about her own opinions, knowing quite well that this might be the magical version of her great grandmother, but the same rules applied.

The old biddy, as she’d been rambling, had taken Hermione’s hand and led her to an open area, somewhat separated from the impressive yarn selection, where there was a big table surrounded by more old biddies of the same grade of Glorianna. On the table was a mixture of yarn, sewing patterns and massive industrial grade tea pots and plates overflowing with a mixture of home made cakes and 40p multibuy supermarket biscuits.

Somewhat summarily Hermione found herself parked in the most insanely comfy chair she’d ever sat in, a mug of tea placed in front of her and a plate of mixed baked goods put next to it. The tea, it had to be noted was an odd mix of milky and strong enough to not only knock a fly from the wall but take the wall with it. A quick sniff confirmed that it was indeed, Yorkshire tea.

What followed was a mixed ten minutes or so where they alternated between haphazard introductions to the ladies round the table, all of notable name Hermione couldn’t help but notice, while they passed around Hermione’s current attempts at knitting. Once she’d got all the names (and was attempting to remember them, she decided that if all else failed, referring to them as My Lady was clearly a safe bet) they sat to work on cheerfully improving her knitting while also proving that McGonagall had clearly hit the nail on the head about wanting gossip. Soon Hermione was being plied with excessive amounts of cake and tea while being interrogated effectively about the current state of Hogwarts. She was trying to be discrete and relatively neutral about it, not wanting to offend any of them, however it quickly became clear that these old biddies held a deeply cynical view of the youth today (by which they meant anyone under the age of a hundred, and probably a hundred and fifty Hermione suspected considering they seemed to think Dumbledore was a young hothead that would grow out of his liberalism when he got a bit older – this view was expressed by the lady Hermione discovered was his maternal aunt Rosina) and wanted all the nastiest of details that could be provided.

At 9pm she was sent back through the floo with some already vastly improved knitting and a doggy bag of cake, because she was far too skinny apparently, and a bottle of what she suspected was a rather expensive vintage of single malt whiskey. McGonagall was waiting for her with an amused smile.

“I will escort you back to your common room Miss Granger, but first, the bottle of whiskey?” Hermione wondered how she knew since it was in her bag and not visible. The older woman laughed. “I know that lot well enough to know that you, aside from knitting, have enough cake to keep even mister Weasley quiet for at least ten minutes and a bottle of whiskey in that bag. If you wish I will save it and give it back at the time upon which you next return home but you are not taking it up to the dorms.”

Hermione laughed. Apparently her elderly friends were a tad predictable. She drew out the bottle and handed it over.“I don’t drink whiskey, neither do my parents, so you can keep it if you want.” McGonagall gave her a fond smile of one very happy woman, which increased exponentially when she read the label. Hermione might not have recognised the brand but it was clear the Scotswoman did and it was, as expected, an exceptional vintage.

And that was how Hermione began to spend her Monday evenings from after dinner to 9pm at the Knitters guild.

The second meeting she attended had had a rare male presence at it, in the form of a wizard Gloriana informed her could check her bloodlines. Apparently the old biddies were right (something she quickly discovered was usually the case) and that was in fact the daughter of a previously thought defunct family and in short order had been formally registered so, along with obtaining the estates which had been held in trust for the proscribed century before they defaulted to the ministry. It was at this point that they clearly decided that Hermione needed to know all the secret rules of being a pure blood lady, even if she was technically a half-blood now.

Very soon they also began digging further and further into the state of the world from Hermione, via liberal application of tea, cake and alcohol. They were still sending her home with bottles of whiskey, but the more she became an accepted member the more they relaxed and treated her like one of them, including apparently not caring that she wasn’t old enough to drink. She’d quickly discovered that trying to turn down alcohol laced tea, or anything from these ladies in fact, was basically impossible..

Ron had initially tried to tease her about her new social group but had miraculously shut up when she threatened to stop sharing the cake haul with him. More time spent round the Knitting guild was effectively curing her of her crush on the idiot, as the old ladies would making passing comments making her realise just how badly suited to each other they were. Their complete separation from Hogwarts made them a valued source of sense and wisdom Hermione found, and more and more she valued her time spent with the old ladies.

As spring began to give out towards summer and the exams rolled closer, she also found the few hours spent with the knitting guild were a valuable source of both stress release and tips from people who had done this all before. She’d never gone into an exam season so relaxed as this, which considering the state of the wizarding world, was somewhat incongruous. Her stress and worry apparently still was somewhat visible as more and more, the old women were extracting details of what was going on with progressive levels of disapproval.

It all came to a head one Monday in June when, with a frown, she told them about Harry having gone off with Dumbledore on the Horcrux hunt. Originally she’d tried to keep that part secret but had been reminded that these were some of the oldest members of the most noted pure blood families for all they seemed like a bunch of old biddies. It had taken them about five seconds flat to pick up all her careful answers and do the maths.

Very quickly this time, there were some dissatisfied grumbles and the women began to move faster than Hermione had ever seen them. Meanwhile Gloriana sat her down and plied her with the expected cake and tea, extracting every last bit of information needed out of her surprisingly efficiently.

By the time she was allowed back to Hogwarts, all hell had broken loose at the school. She was oddly unworried however as Gloriana had insisted on escorting her back, and that was when things got surreal.

It started with several more knitters coming through, several wielding their knitting needles (at least one set of which Hermione realised with a start were in fact wands) with not just malice aforethought, but in between thought and afterthought too.

The first deatheater they encountered was Greyback. Hermione was drawing her wand when the utterly unexpected happened. One of the ladies with her threw something at him over her shoulder while shouting disapprovingly.

“Now look here, Fenrir my boy. Stop messing round and put some clothes on!.” To Hermione’s pure surprise, the half transformed monster was forced back to his human form, and with some embarrassment, got dressed. All the while, the lady, called Angamariona (where did the pure bloods get some of these names?), was busy ranting in the way of a grandmother dealing with badly behaved grandchildren.

The most feared werewolf in Britain was then, shame faced and looking like a boy who’d been caught trying to steal cake, forced to lead them to where the rest of the death eaters were, in the words of Gloriana, making a bit of a nuisance of themselves.

What happened next was an odd mix of one of the most surreal and funny events Hermione had ever had the privilege to witness.

The old women proceeded through the school and every time they met fighting or indeed people generally, there came the litany of the elderly that was familiar in all cultures. Masked death eaters and light wizards alike were told to stand up straight right now and stop being disruptive. Children were told to stop running in the corridors and to walk properly if you please. Honestly, the youth these days.

Eventually the main protagonists were collected together in the entrance hall, surrounded by old biddies and being harangued with the best of them. Now Hermione knew what McGonagall had meant by not playing fair.

She wasn’t quite sure what Rosie had done when he was ten at Galataea’s garden party, or what Nott had done when he was five that we’d all rather not be reminded of, or for that matter what McNair had done that was so embarrassing at the age of seven and that his great great aunt hoped he’d grow out of but clearly whatever they were was traumatic enough that they were taking off their masks, dropping hoods and standing up straight with very red faces. They were also shuffling feet and generally showing all the signs of deep embarrassment as they were harangued.

It wasn’t just the death eater side that were suffering under the words of the Grandmas of the wizarding world either. The light side was equally targetted.

Hermione honestly desperately wanted to know what Mad-eye Moody’s embarrassing childhood tick was, and for that matter about that incident that Emmeline Vance had apparently been involved in that we shouldn’t need to be reminded of now, should we, was. She suspected she’d be able to find out at subsequent knitting meetings.

It was into this scene that Voldemort appeared.

The deformed dark lord appeared at the top of the stair triumphantly. Apparently not noticing the scene at the bottom of the grand staircase, he raised his arms and announced that Dumbledore was dead, that he was triumphant, and a lot of things Hermione knew were an extremely bad idea to say round the Knitting guild.

The absolute silence that followed that announcement was broken by an aged voice, that of Dumbledore’s great aunt Rosin.

“Well, I always said that boy would come to a sticky end if he didn’t develop some common sense.” Hermione nearly had to snort as her mind resolutely refused to think about the fact that Dumbledore was apparently dead. Rosina had indeed said that quite a lot. These old ladies had been an excellent cure for her authority worship. It was hard to respect an authority you knew every embarrassing childhood incident of.

Another elderly voice chipped in.

“And who are you young man? You clearly need to cut back on the rituals and get some common sense.” Hermione grinned.

“He’s Voldemort, or Tom Riddle as you please, Lady Maladicta.” That name had made her giggle. She was a member of a cadet branch of the Black family through an illegitimate affair between one of the younger sons in the early nineteenth century that had married a younger son of a cadet branch of the Rosier family. Maladicta was a well chosen name she’d discovered. Amongst other things she cheerfully swore like a sailor, knowing damned well that no-one would tell off such an ancient matriarch for it.

Voldemort snarled at the mention of his birth name.

“Oh, the son of poor Merope Gaunt. The half blood son. Always thought he was a bad ton him.” The next several comments could not be put onto paper, but Hermione was pretty sure she was not the only person who’d just had her vocabulary widened. She might actually have to look some of those words up.

The stir behind her told Hermione that the deatheaters had heard the comment about him being half blood and she grinned. Thank you Maladicta.

It was then that the litany began in full force as the ancient matriarchs began the full grandmotherly rant, picking out everything possibly wrong with Voldemort. The effect was rather amusing to watch.

At first he was staring at them in shock that anyone would dare talk to hi in such a way (what would your mother think of your behaviour?) before, instinctively, his posture straightened to that of a boy who knew he was in trouble even as his face whitened and his eyes widened (where are your manners boy? What are they teaching at schools these days) and then he seemed to realise how he was reacting. As they were getting to the climax of the group rant (what do you and your little friends think you are doing? You’re disrupting important study time and even worse, you forced us to call off our knitting evening and you should know how terrible that is. Griselda was just recovering from having to run the exams, and changes in in routine do upset Perfidianna’s humours. Honestly, you should be ashamed of yourself) he seemed to realise what he was doing and that in fact it was a group of extremely wizened old ladies who apparently completely failed to be scared of him.

Hermione watched in horror as the mad wizard raised his wand, only to hear the sound of what could only be described as malevolent clicking. She wasn’t sure how the clicking of knitting needles could be malevolent but the fact that these old ladies used wands to knit with (and in one odd case, crochet) helped to explain the odd phenomenon. 

Quickly a shield appeared that shimmered between purple and turquoise, and it wasn’t really a single shield but many. It sort of resembled the northern lights Hermione noted absently, as shimmering walls formed up separating warrior from child, dark from light and Voldemort from basically everyone.

It was at this point Hermione noticed the old women straighten even as their wands clicked and the sense of power built. She glanced around her elderly friends and was reminded that many of these were old women from some of the darkest families in the wizarding world and they were around before most of the things that had been banned we considered all that bad. They had probably forgotten more dark magic than Voldemort or his death eaters had ever learnt.

She was distracted by a cry of pain from the shadows not far from the Dark Lord and gasped as she saw Harry appear from under the invisibility cloak, holding his head as a dark smoke rose out from his scar.

Several other dark wisps were appearing as well and they swirled round the dark lord standing there looking rather shocked. Then, all of a sudden, he was hit by the shadows and Hermione watched his body contort and the flesh melt and move until in front of them was a red eyed version of Tom Riddle, but much older.

With a start, she realised what they Knitting Guild had somehow done. They had reunited all of Voldemort's Horcruxes with the man himself. Only the destroyed ones hadn’t returned to him, leaving their marks on his person.

Voldemort snarled in anger and began to attack the shields with vigour, yelling virulently at his supporters about how they would be punished for allowing such a thing and why weren’t they fighting?

The answer to that was simple. As soon as the horcruxes has been re-united with the main soul piece, the grannies had restarted their haranguing.“Look here, Evan my boy, what do you think you’re doing?”

“Lucius my boy, you should know better than to fall in with such a bad crowd. Go home this minute, and you better have an explanation ready!”

“Antonin! Whatever would your mother think?”

And on it went as the death eaters began to look more and more browbeaten, looking between the dark lord and the women. It was clear which ones they were more scared of and Voldemort looked irate.

His diatribe was ended however when Gloriana marched up the steps to him and grabbed his ear, physically dragging him down the stairs.

“Now see here my boy. I’ve had enough of your behaviour. Killing innocent people just because people were nasty to you at school! Really, grow up! Your tantrum has gone on long enough and, by hook or by crook, it stops now. Now stand still and let me get a proper look at you!” She pushed him to stand, shocked at the treatment, in the middle of a circle of the knitters.

Birdlike, the group circled him, strongly resembling a flock of vultures.

“Homonculous-”

“Bloody badly made. What steaming ignoramus put this together?” That was Maladicta of course.

“Its going to crumble soon anyway...”

The muttering went on as they analysed Voldemort’s reborn form. Then, even as they muttered, the clicking of the needles started again and soon the form dissolved onto the floor, leaving only a desiccated hand, a lump of bone, some bloody and the rather gruesome looking remains of a toddler. From what Hermione could tell, it was exactly what had been put in the cauldron for his rebirth ceremony according to Harry. The three components and the body Voldemort had possessed before he’d regained a form. Above it floated an angry form.

“Hecate!” She jumped at the cry and then realised what they were doing. The rest of the words spoken she only sort of understood from her ancient runes class, just enough to recognise a sort of exorcism spell, and then it was all gone.

She blinked in surprise. That was it? That was the end of the war that had been building? A bunch of ducentigenarians had knitted the war to an end? Right.

The old women huffed.

“Good riddance to bad rot.”

“Well, one should shoot his own rabid dog I suppose.”

There were several other typically elderly comments as the women shook their heads and the shields they had conjured dropped.

They then set about clearing up, because heaven forbid you leave a mess.

In short order they were in the great hall, having taken over the head table which was now full of knitting paraphernalia, industrial sized teapots and plates full of cake and biscuits. The children had been sat down at their own tables with yet more tea and biscuits, while the death eaters and order members stood at either end of the staff table, shuffling their feet in embarrassment. Hermione, who had been sat at the end of the staff table, was smiling as McGonagall lost an argument about the tea being served to the children being laced with whiskey ‘for their health’.

Scridgemore and the senior members of the ministry, including Amelia Bones, had been summoned and this was the scene into which they entered.

The confident ex-auror sagged in quick order as the old biddies ordered him to clear up these misguided boys (the death eaters) and make sure they learnt not to do it again. Then the women went on to issue a number of orders and sent some of the most senior people in Wizarding Britain scurrying, the pupils of Hogwarts watching in in awe.

A year later and that night had become the stuff of fearfully spoken legend.

This was partly because the old biddies hadn’t stopped at ending the war with grandmotherly-ness. Having got to Hogwarts, they immediately began to deplore the state of Hogwarts these days (far better back in my day), the education available (don’t they teach manners these days? You mean they actually don’t teach manners these days? That wouldn’t have been allowed when I was young), the state of the students (Honestly, who let a little tit like that have so much power in Slytherin house? (that was Maladicta on the subject of Draco Malfoy)) and just about everything else.

As such, they decided to take Hogwarts in hand, and absolutely no-one had the guts to disagree.

The best bit for Hermione of course, was that she was already an accepted member of the Knitting Guild, as an apprentice but still, one of them. This of course meant she was exempt from much of the complaint and held a favoured position.

Binns was summarily dismissed, and effectively exorcised by Josianah, apparently his niece, and one of the quieter knitters, who explained that he was dead to the ghost, who apparently hadn’t worked that out.

Snape was given an almighty dressing down from someone it turned out was related to Eileen Prince and while he was allowed to remain in his post, it was under regular inspection to make sure he was behaving himself properly. It was literally the only time she’d seen him look downtrodden and didn’t admit to the boys how much she would cherish the memory.

Slughorn was allowed to stay, after a strong lecture on appropriate behaviour with his students, which immediately ceased his networking attempts.

By and large, most of the rest of the staff were allowed to stay on, if in a somewhat lectured state. There were some sweeping changes made however.

Firstly, divination was given a wholesale makeover, removing almost all parts relating to foresight and moving over to the other skills of divination that one did not require the gift of foresight to use. A whole host of other classes were added to the curriculum as well, including manners, culture, government and law, ones that Hermione learned used to be on the curriculum before pure blood supremacy became a thing. Most of the were required classes along with flying, although there were also electives for the more advanced side for those who wished to go into the subjects professionally.

It had to be noted that everyone was a lot more careful round Hermione these days. Her inclusion with the Knitting Guild had very much been noticed, and it gave her a sort of awed fear that those terrifying old women clearly considered her one of them. It also meant she finished her Hogwarts career, not only with outstanding NEWTs, but with a number of offers of employment of the variety that the Knitters Guild considered suitable for a young lady to do before she married. She gleefully took the offer from the ministry to head a commission to do a full audit of British magical law, government and systems with an eye to improving it for the everyday wizard. She was under no illusions this only existed because some of her knitting friends had made ‘suggestions’ in the right ears. Quite disgruntled ones she had to note.

After her first day in the office, a Monday of course, she went to the yarn shop in Hogsmede (it didn’t have a name and if you didn’t know it was there you’d have thought it was an old mansion of some ailing pure blood family. Hell, it didn’t even have a till. Some sort of magic just knew which yarns you used and the money was transferred discretely at Gringotts. Talking about money was crass after all.

Smiling, she sat down, taking the offered tea and Rosina’s patented rich Victorian chocolate fudge cake (a heart attack on a plate, but it tasted brilliant) and waited for the expected barrage. Well, delicate questioning between knitting. Eventually though, she got round to being able to ask a question that had niggled at her for the last year.“So, during the battle, what was with the knitting then?” She asked curiously. They all looked at her.

“You’ve never heard of battle knitting dear?” She smiled wryly.

“I doubt many have my lady.” She said dryly, now more confident with them. There was a cackles of laughter even as, on cue, at least two of them deplored that state of education these days. Hermione carefully did not comment about the fact they currently controlled the British Education system right now.

“Well, it was originally battle weaving, on of Helga Hufflepuff’s specialities, don’t you know.” Griselda started, only for Gloriana to butt in.

“But, well, carrying a loom round to a fight is a bit hard, and really not wieldy when you’re our age, so knitting took over as a more portable form-”

“- And you can use wands to knit. Its a bit hard to weave with a wand.” That was Rosina.

Smiling at the group effort lesson, punctuated with tea and nibbling at cake or biscuits, Hermione looked down at her far improved knitting, now also being done with two wands (they’d got her a specially made set for her birthday), and grinned.

Who knew that Ron, already engaged to a very pregnant Lavender Brown, being horrible, would result in this. She might even have to send him and adequately suitable thank you card. He’d probably break out in hives at all the propriety of it.

Grinning, she decided to take a leaf from of the Knitting Guild’s guide of not particularly passive aggressive applications for good manners, and earned an evil cackle when asked to explain what she was grinning about.

Beside her, Gloriana patted her hand with an approving grin.

“They you are dear, you’re learning.” She said, an evil twinkle in her eye.


End file.
